Increasing sales from incoming telephone enquiries
Increasing your sales from incoming telephone enquiries
Over the last 5 years, most management teams have at one stage or another discussed the area of incoming telephone sales enquiries.It has probably been a subject that has been discussed at least once a year for the past 40 years if the truth be known, yet the incoming telephone call issue remains for most dealerships one that is unsolved. Most of the reasoning behind this is simple-it has been made more complicated by many than it really is.As with most things in life, it is better to keep it simple. Most areas of the sales funnel go back to the law of averages; every sales department is based on the numbers game or supply and demand (unless you are Microsoft).
Your dealerships success is based on how many people are calling into the dealership on the phone or face to face, and then on how many you are able to motivate to purchase a vehicle or service product.It doesn't sound that difficult, yet there is so much difficulty in creating a process that allows dealers to be confident that they are maximising their results from the phone enquiries received, and from their advertising and marketing efforts and expenditure. Experience shows that it is due to not having a basic infrastructure and or not having a consequence for poor performance.If a salesperson within your dealership does not know how to effectively handle an incoming phone enquiry, then giving them more of these enquiries during the course of a month, without guidance, will only create a challenge and will not solve it.There are sales managers and dealer principals out there who have completed some training within the last 5 years and it did not make any difference, yet training alone will never solve the incoming telephone call issue.
Without incorporating the accountability issue, most sales people will revert back to what they were previously doing.The key elements of solving incoming telephone call sales conversion within your dealership is as follows:
Education
Accountability
Managing the information and results
Installing consequences for non-performance, to encourage correct behaviour.
Without all of the elements detailed above you will not be able to fully maximise your phone enquiries, however if you complete just some of the above fundamentals, then you will improve your results dramatically and quickly!
The key elements
Look at each of the above key elements individually:
Education. For anyone to expect better performance, additional training may be required. Challenges arise when there is no apparent improvement following the training. This is normally due to the fact that the good education of any employee is about repetition & reinforcement, unfortunately, people are sent to a training session (whether in-house or an outside source) and there is no follow-up to the initial training. This results in the student normally reverting back to their old habits, due to the concept that to alter behaviour in any human being requires initial education followed by supervision and reinforcement until the new behaviour becomes natural.
Accountability. This is an area consistently raised in the past, because it is difficult to alter behaviour without a person being held accountable for a particular action. This is true in any area of the business (and life) and yet there is a reluctance to hold people responsible (and praised) for a job well done.
Managing the information and results. No matter what information you gather in regard to any area of your sales department, unless you take action on the good and poor behaviour then the chances of improvement are dramatically reduced.
Consequence for non-performance. If a salesperson is taking incoming calls in a dealership without regard to results, and they are able to continue taking incoming calls, the chances of your overall results improving are slim to none. You must reward and encourage the correct behaviour by ensuring that there is a consequence for poor behaviour installed in your business.
The overall conclusion to the above guidelines is that you cannot have any one salesperson dictating the end result to your incoming telephone call and consequent sales volumes.
It is a combination of good technique and fundamental management processes that enable your sales staff to perform to an above average delivery ratio of 15% sales from your enquiries.What are the basic elements to increasing your incoming telephone call sales 50% to 200% without any additional spending?
It simply has everything to do with increasing your sales, through managing the opportunities you currently have available to you, more effectively than you have in the past. Lets face it the market place has been tough this year in cars sales across every market in Europe.
100% Logging of all Incoming Calls
As I have mentioned so many times before, without accurate logging of all of your incoming calls how do you know the quantity of calls you are receiving? More importantly, what type of increase is available to you?
Just keep in mind that the average dealership in Ireland and the UK probably has a 3-5% delivery ratio opposed to a 15% one that is easily achievable to you (an increase of up to 10% hence the increase in incoming telephone calls to sales of 50% to 200%).
Step 1. All you need to do to get a 100% accuracy level is have your receptionists log every call prior to handing it to a sales person, this enables you to have a log of each and every call and once the sales person realises that they are now going to be held accountable, a greater awareness is automatic.
Step 2. Introduce a document or electronic database capture format that the sales person has to complete while on the call and then incorporate management inclusion by not allowing a sales person to complete the process without management signing off, what is called the "fifteen minute window."
Step 3. Follow up and follow through of all existing leads! This one key area of activity will influence sales. If your sales people won’t do the management must. You should follow up every prospect (telephone or face to face) a minimum of 3 times if you seriously want to improve your sales.
Step 4. Managing accountability. With the above information now available, it must be managed on a daily and weekly basis! Do not monitor once a month because in most cases it will be like taking action after the horse has bolted, because incoming telephone call enquiries purchase in a short time frame (3-5 days).
At the very least, evaluate your performance on a week-to-week basis making sure you take action where necessary. The first step would be to start taking incoming calls more seriously, you will find an immense upside to a minimal of time required to make a significant Increase in sales.
Step 5. Educate your sales team. Create an expectation level within your dealership of what you expect from an incoming call in regard to the results in each area (i.e. 90% names and numbers, 55% appointment ratio, 40% show ratio, 15% delivery ratio, etc.). To achieve these numbers, it will require a commitment of the management team to train the sales people, reception, and, just as importantly, themselves!
Logging should not be installed to beat up on your sales people. It should only be installed if you are prepared to address the weaknesses that it will identify and praise the strengths of the sales people measured.
Introducing standards
The only way you can make a significant improvement in sales from your incoming sales enquiries is to have a minimum standard within your dealership.
This would mean that if someone falls below this standard, then action is taken. In most cases, it would be in the form of training and development first, followed by more dramatic action if the person does not respond.
I would suggest you start with a minimum standard of 8% delivery ratio ( from telephone enquires) in month one, followed by 10% in month two, and 12% in month three etc. This means that if anyone falls below these minimum standards, then they should be suspended from taking any more calls until they have fully maximised the ones they have already taken.
This will create the behaviour you are looking for, because your sales people will now understand the importance of taking the responsibility of a phone enquiry. If you are not prepared to have a consequence for non-performance, then you are automatically restricting your business’s ability to increase sales.
Increasing your telephone sales is as simple as taking them seriously.
Sales is a numbers game-to increase sales, you either have to increase the number of opportunities that are available to you, or more effectively manage the ones you have.
First start by motivating more customers to visit your location, followed by a more structured process to maximise each and every opportunity.I hope I have given you a few things to consider on your quest for an increase in sales in the last 5 months of 2004.
Cheers
Brian
P.S. There is another way to increase your sales from your telephone enquiries, but it’s a bit radical for most. If you are interested drop me an email and I’ll forward it onto you. It’s not dodgy or manipulative and I have statistical, proven, evidence that it works.
Tel +44 7720 558 510
Email:brian@saleslynx.co.uk
Over the last 5 years, most management teams have at one stage or another discussed the area of incoming telephone sales enquiries.It has probably been a subject that has been discussed at least once a year for the past 40 years if the truth be known, yet the incoming telephone call issue remains for most dealerships one that is unsolved. Most of the reasoning behind this is simple-it has been made more complicated by many than it really is.As with most things in life, it is better to keep it simple. Most areas of the sales funnel go back to the law of averages; every sales department is based on the numbers game or supply and demand (unless you are Microsoft).
Your dealerships success is based on how many people are calling into the dealership on the phone or face to face, and then on how many you are able to motivate to purchase a vehicle or service product.It doesn't sound that difficult, yet there is so much difficulty in creating a process that allows dealers to be confident that they are maximising their results from the phone enquiries received, and from their advertising and marketing efforts and expenditure. Experience shows that it is due to not having a basic infrastructure and or not having a consequence for poor performance.If a salesperson within your dealership does not know how to effectively handle an incoming phone enquiry, then giving them more of these enquiries during the course of a month, without guidance, will only create a challenge and will not solve it.There are sales managers and dealer principals out there who have completed some training within the last 5 years and it did not make any difference, yet training alone will never solve the incoming telephone call issue.
Without incorporating the accountability issue, most sales people will revert back to what they were previously doing.The key elements of solving incoming telephone call sales conversion within your dealership is as follows:
Education
Accountability
Managing the information and results
Installing consequences for non-performance, to encourage correct behaviour.
Without all of the elements detailed above you will not be able to fully maximise your phone enquiries, however if you complete just some of the above fundamentals, then you will improve your results dramatically and quickly!
The key elements
Look at each of the above key elements individually:
Education. For anyone to expect better performance, additional training may be required. Challenges arise when there is no apparent improvement following the training. This is normally due to the fact that the good education of any employee is about repetition & reinforcement, unfortunately, people are sent to a training session (whether in-house or an outside source) and there is no follow-up to the initial training. This results in the student normally reverting back to their old habits, due to the concept that to alter behaviour in any human being requires initial education followed by supervision and reinforcement until the new behaviour becomes natural.
Accountability. This is an area consistently raised in the past, because it is difficult to alter behaviour without a person being held accountable for a particular action. This is true in any area of the business (and life) and yet there is a reluctance to hold people responsible (and praised) for a job well done.
Managing the information and results. No matter what information you gather in regard to any area of your sales department, unless you take action on the good and poor behaviour then the chances of improvement are dramatically reduced.
Consequence for non-performance. If a salesperson is taking incoming calls in a dealership without regard to results, and they are able to continue taking incoming calls, the chances of your overall results improving are slim to none. You must reward and encourage the correct behaviour by ensuring that there is a consequence for poor behaviour installed in your business.
The overall conclusion to the above guidelines is that you cannot have any one salesperson dictating the end result to your incoming telephone call and consequent sales volumes.
It is a combination of good technique and fundamental management processes that enable your sales staff to perform to an above average delivery ratio of 15% sales from your enquiries.What are the basic elements to increasing your incoming telephone call sales 50% to 200% without any additional spending?
It simply has everything to do with increasing your sales, through managing the opportunities you currently have available to you, more effectively than you have in the past. Lets face it the market place has been tough this year in cars sales across every market in Europe.
100% Logging of all Incoming Calls
As I have mentioned so many times before, without accurate logging of all of your incoming calls how do you know the quantity of calls you are receiving? More importantly, what type of increase is available to you?
Just keep in mind that the average dealership in Ireland and the UK probably has a 3-5% delivery ratio opposed to a 15% one that is easily achievable to you (an increase of up to 10% hence the increase in incoming telephone calls to sales of 50% to 200%).
Step 1. All you need to do to get a 100% accuracy level is have your receptionists log every call prior to handing it to a sales person, this enables you to have a log of each and every call and once the sales person realises that they are now going to be held accountable, a greater awareness is automatic.
Step 2. Introduce a document or electronic database capture format that the sales person has to complete while on the call and then incorporate management inclusion by not allowing a sales person to complete the process without management signing off, what is called the "fifteen minute window."
Step 3. Follow up and follow through of all existing leads! This one key area of activity will influence sales. If your sales people won’t do the management must. You should follow up every prospect (telephone or face to face) a minimum of 3 times if you seriously want to improve your sales.
Step 4. Managing accountability. With the above information now available, it must be managed on a daily and weekly basis! Do not monitor once a month because in most cases it will be like taking action after the horse has bolted, because incoming telephone call enquiries purchase in a short time frame (3-5 days).
At the very least, evaluate your performance on a week-to-week basis making sure you take action where necessary. The first step would be to start taking incoming calls more seriously, you will find an immense upside to a minimal of time required to make a significant Increase in sales.
Step 5. Educate your sales team. Create an expectation level within your dealership of what you expect from an incoming call in regard to the results in each area (i.e. 90% names and numbers, 55% appointment ratio, 40% show ratio, 15% delivery ratio, etc.). To achieve these numbers, it will require a commitment of the management team to train the sales people, reception, and, just as importantly, themselves!
Logging should not be installed to beat up on your sales people. It should only be installed if you are prepared to address the weaknesses that it will identify and praise the strengths of the sales people measured.
Introducing standards
The only way you can make a significant improvement in sales from your incoming sales enquiries is to have a minimum standard within your dealership.
This would mean that if someone falls below this standard, then action is taken. In most cases, it would be in the form of training and development first, followed by more dramatic action if the person does not respond.
I would suggest you start with a minimum standard of 8% delivery ratio ( from telephone enquires) in month one, followed by 10% in month two, and 12% in month three etc. This means that if anyone falls below these minimum standards, then they should be suspended from taking any more calls until they have fully maximised the ones they have already taken.
This will create the behaviour you are looking for, because your sales people will now understand the importance of taking the responsibility of a phone enquiry. If you are not prepared to have a consequence for non-performance, then you are automatically restricting your business’s ability to increase sales.
Increasing your telephone sales is as simple as taking them seriously.
Sales is a numbers game-to increase sales, you either have to increase the number of opportunities that are available to you, or more effectively manage the ones you have.
First start by motivating more customers to visit your location, followed by a more structured process to maximise each and every opportunity.I hope I have given you a few things to consider on your quest for an increase in sales in the last 5 months of 2004.
Cheers
Brian
P.S. There is another way to increase your sales from your telephone enquiries, but it’s a bit radical for most. If you are interested drop me an email and I’ll forward it onto you. It’s not dodgy or manipulative and I have statistical, proven, evidence that it works.
Tel +44 7720 558 510
Email:brian@saleslynx.co.uk
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